A Saturday Evening with the Bettinger Family

Last night, I had some things to check on at Sears and Mark had wanted to look at getting some new work out shoes so we decided to make a trip to the mall. We used to go to the mall quite a bit when Mady was younger to let her play at the playground. However, we haven't gone much lately. Madalyn does, however, know that the mall is where the "horsies" are. She loves riding the Carousel when we let her. Tonight was one of those "special" nights.

We turned into the mall parking lot and Madalyn starts yelling, from the backseat, "Mall! Mall!" Then it turned into "horsies, horsies" - mixed in with some high pitched squealing and giggling. It's really cute to see her get all excited. The 2 other places that cause this kind of reaction are the church and the library.

We did some walking around and ended up in a shoe store where Mark was looking at some new work out shoes. Mady was quietly sitting in one of the provided chairs when this young college girl started to sit down next to her and chat with her. The girl had a Hello Kitty key chain on her purse which she pulled off and let Mady look at. Of course, Mady was all over that. They were chatting about what color she was and pointing out body parts. At the end of the conversation the girl asked me if I minded if she gave the key chain to Mady. I told her that she had just made Mady's evening and that was the truth. Mady proudly held that key chain the rest of the time we were at the mall. She had Daddy attach it to her pants and even walked back over to the girl to show off her new prize. It was cute.

Before we left, we stopped off at the Carousel. Mady and Daddy picked the very best horse and she, of course, loved it. I think this was actually the first time that she didn't cry when it was time to get off. I heard Daddy telling her as they were done and walking towards me, "Go tell Mommy all about it." Mady proudly ran to me and said, "ALL ABOUT IT!" Super cute!

Here are some other fun things from the night - we had a good time as a family:
*Mady can tell you what her first and last name are, what city and state she lives in and the name of the street she lives on. So tonight, in the car, I was asking her all of these questions. I got to her name and asked her what her first name was. She replied "Yellow Dino." I then asked what her last name was and she said "Bettinger." Apparently her name is Yellow Dino Bettinger. Some time ago she told me that she was a Yellow Dino and she proudly roared for me. I guess that hasn't changed :)
*Madalyn has done really well by responding with "yes" when she's asked a question or "yes Mommy (Or Daddy) when told to do something. I have been really proud of her. However recently she's started saying "yep" and it bothers me. So, I've been correcting her. We were driving and Mark had asked me a question and I replied "Yep... Oops, did you just hear what I said." To which he responded, "Yep!" We both started laughing. I guess we need to be be more careful about how we respond if we're trying to teach her...